One-Eyed Bastard—Green Day
#365Songs: February 7
Green Day-bashing has long been de rigueur for punks of all ages. To which I say … bollocks.
Find me a young, “non-commercial” punk band that’s writing and recording songs half as cool as “One-Eyed Bastard” and I’ll eat my black wool cap and stomp on my own face with my vegan Doc Martens.
Look, I get it. I’m sure the modern machine that is modern Green Day is like a traveling football team — trucks and lights and roadies and airplanes and sound systems and runners and agents and managers and merch and god knows what else.
But at the end of the day, this is still the same three guys doin’ it today that it was back in 1990. And fundamentally, they’re still doing the same old things the same old-fashioned way — steamrolling drums, vibey bass grooves with tone to die for, a few manically strummed and heavily distorted barre chords, and a lot of adenoidal hollering about angst and ennui, sex and politics, police and thieves.
30+ years later? That, my friends, is fucking impressive.
Now, about “One-Eyed Bastard.”
Fundamentally, punk has always been guitar music. And the main riff on “One-Eyed Bastard” is to die for. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know a riff from a hieroglyph. Every damn guitar player on the planet who’s heard that riff wishes they’d written it.
As to the lyric, find me someone else makin’ radio hits with choruses like this:
Vendetta is a friend of mine
Revenge is sweeter than wine
I never asked to hear your goddamned feelings
Get on your knees when you’re kissin’ my ring
“One-Eyed Bastard” is from Green Day’s 14th studio album, called Saviors. And I’ll be the first to admit it’s a mixed bag of an album. I can hear the auto-tune, too many of the tracks recall too much of Weezer, and the whole bisexual trope of “Bobby Sox” feels like pandering.
On the other hand, tracks like “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” “Look Ma, No Brains,” and “Coma City” are just great rock and roll songs.
And one of the things I really like about this album is that Green Day is letting their vintage rock and roll side show through. They’ve always displayed a penchant for torch songs, porch songs, and doo-wopian love croons, and on tracks like “Dilemma” and Goodnight Adeline,” the melodies are positively melty.
And that’s not punk? Fuck you. The Clash produced some of the most memorable melodies ever: “Spanish Bombs,” “Lost in the Supermarket,” “Stay Free,” “Hitsville UK” — these are all timelessly brilliant melodies. And you can’t say a damn thing bad about The Clash.
Now, that said, Joe Strummer was never worth more than a couple of million dollars at his absolute zenith. Billie Joe Armstrong is reportedly up around the 75 mil mark. And while The Clash had a box set called Clash on Broadway, Green Day had a Broadway hit on Broadway. So yeah, we’re talking another level of capitalism here.
But sellouts? I’ll say it again, bollocks. Who else but Green Day is out there calling Trumpists the fascists they really are? Performative? Fine, they’re performers. Perform.
As long as they keep performing performances like “One-Eyed Bastard,” Greed Day are goddamn fine in my book.
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